Pages

Friday, November 30, 2018

Yippee! We're excited to be sponsoring the Fall and Winter Coffee Lover's Blog Hop! Want to play along? You can find all the details and how to participate on the Coffee Loving Card Makers Blog.

We're thrilled that you've stopped by and hope you enjoy all the wonderful coffee, tea, and hot cocoa inspired projects being shared during the event. We're sharing a few projects today, and offering a great discount to our online shoppers. We apologize in advance, our shelves are looking a little bare. We were so busy during the Black Friday weekend and our restock orders haven't arrived yet.

The first project we wanted to share was created using the Gift Box Card die from Avery Elle. We thought it was the perfect way to gift someone a coffee gift card.

Our second project uses the adorable, and super popular Penguin Treat Holder from Neat and Tangled. We thought it would be fun to have him/her holding a package of instant Starbucks Coffee. It would also be cute holding a candy cane, or a Valentine treat!

Our final project uses the new Fold Up Tags from MFT Stamps. I LOVE this die! We colored the pumpkin spice mug from Lawn Fawn with our colored pencils and fixed it to the top of the tag that we attached to some hot cocoa mix. Lift the top flap, to reveal the to: and from: portion of the tag.

We sure hope you enjoyed the projects. We enjoyed creating them. You'll find a list of supplies and links below.

Friday, November 9, 2018

Hello and thank you for stopping by our blog! Today we're sharing a cute, colorful card created using the Little Snowman Agenda stamps and dies from Mama Elephant along with the Wonky Scallop Frames from Avery Ellle. We hope you enjoy the card!

The snowman images were stamped with Copic friendly ink and colored with Copics. The frames and the inside rectangles were colored with Distress Oxide Ink. Specific colors are listed below in the supply links.

Before assembling the card, I added some Shimmer Spritz to the inside rectangle pieces that I colored with the Distress Oxide inks. Stardust Stickles were added to the elements on the snowmen and the Holiday messages were stamped with VersFine Black Onyx ink.

I used the leftover snowmen to create tags similar to the one shown below.

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Oh my! This is one of my favorite products from the Lawn Fawn Holiday release. The Mini Pop Up Box from Lawn Fawn creates these fun, interactive scenes that pop up when you open the card. It's super easy to create and can be used all year. I have plans to create a bouquet of flowers for a spring card and balloons for birthday cards.

I pulled out my Little Reindeer Agenda and Little Santa Agenda stamps from Mama Elephant to create this Holiday card. I thought it would be fun to have the reindeer jumping out of the box once the card was opened.

I kept the front of the card simple with a frame and one of the Santa images. I cut several frames and stacked them for more dimension.

Here's the inside of the card. The box pops up once you open the card and is the perfect size for all the Little Agenda stamps from Mama Elephant.

Below is a video from Lawn Fawn introducing the Mini Box Up Box. It's super helpful and demonstrates how to assemble the box and several ideas for fun, interactive cards.

Sunday, October 21, 2018

We're back again today with some more alcohol ink fun. As I mentioned yesterday, Tim Holtz recently introduced a new product designed to work with alcohol inks...Lift Ink! It's like magic!

Not sure how it works? Here's a video of Tim Holtz demonstrating how this product works and some great ideas for using it.

We also have another video to share from Ashley Tucker. She kindly gave us permission to feature her VIDEO here on our blog. She's super talented. We hope you'll visit her Blog and YouTube channel and show her some support by subscribing to follow her and leaving a comment.

In this video, she demonstrates how she used decorative foil to enhance her alcohol ink backgrounds. I love this technique! I've tried it a few times and love the results!

Thursday, October 18, 2018

If you're a fan of alcohol inks, you'll be happy to know, we finally added all of the Tim Holtz alcohol inks to our online store. While the inks have been around for many years, they have recently become very popular again. So, we thought you might enjoy a few blog posts featuring these inks, supplies for creating with these inks, and some fun techniques.

There are numerous techniques and mediums to use when creating with these inks. They can be used on glass, metal, coated paper, Yupo, tiles, or any non-porous surface. My personal favorite is using the inks on Yupo.

As I mentioned, my favorite way to create with these inks is using Yupo. I love sitting down with and assortment of inks, dripping them on the paper, and then blowing them with a straw to move the color around. It's fun to just play, and see what the colors do and how they mix together. Once I've created an assortment of backgrounds, I use them to create cards. Below are a few backgrounds I created and a couple cards I made using the backgrounds.

Yupo is a synthetic paper. The most commonly used is the Yupo ORIGINAL. It's smooth, bright white, and 100% waterproof and tear resistant. It is available in multiple weights (we carry 144#, 74#, 86# and translucent in 104#) and is 100% recyclable and die cuts easily with most dies and machines. As I mentioned before, it is my favorite medium for using alcohol inks. I've tried photo paper and Tim Holtz glossy cardstock. Nothing works quite the same as Yupo. It is a bit more expensive, but totally worth it!

Blending Solution vs. alcohol? I use both, but prefer the way the colors move and blend with the blending solution. I encourage you to experiment with both. I think you'll find they both create magic, just differently. Here's a quick VIDEO from Ranger Ink demonstrating the difference between the two.

Felt Applicator Tools are great for applying alcohol inks. Especially if you like to have more control. To use, place a piece of felt onto your applicator tool. I like to choose 3 or 4 colors that work well together. Then, squeeze a 1-3 second squeeze of each color onto the felt while pushing the tip against the felt. Then pounce the color, or drag the color across the paper. After doing this, I like to add some blending solution to the felt and pounce again over the area where you previously applied the alcohol ink.

The Alcohol Inks from Ranger / Tim Holtz are acid free and as I mentioned before, can be used on most non-porous surfaces. They are available in 60 alcohol ink colors and 7 mixatives. The mixatives are luminous, fast-drying, acid-free inks, specially formulated to
create metallic highlights when combined with Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks.
Use them on non-porous surfaces such as light or dark glossy paper,
Yupo paper, glass, and other slick surfaces.

Ashley Tucker created some fun YouTube videos demonstrating how she created some basic alcohol ink backgrounds. She kindly gave us permission to use her videos, here, in our blog post. Below are her fist and second video in a series using alcohol inks.

We hope you'll head over to her YouTube Channel and take a peek at some of her videos. If you like them, please subscribe to her channel and leave her a comment! She also has a lovely blog you'll find HERE.

Watch for our next blog post. We'll talk more about the inks and a fun, new product Tim introduced a few months ago, Lift Ink.

Monday, October 8, 2018

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the National Coffee Day Blog Hop! We loved reading all the lovely comments and viewing all the inspirational projects posted by the other participants!

The following comments were randomly selected. They will each receive a $15 discount code, redeemable in our online store. If you're name is listed below, please contact us at customerservice@doodlebugswa.com with your full name and email address so we can get your discount code to you.

Saturday, September 29, 2018

Hello coffee lovers! We're so excited to be participating in the National Coffee Day Blog Hop!

To celebrate, we're sharing some fun projects, offering you a great discount, and giving away FOUR, $15 discount codes to four lucky winners. To participate, tell us what your favorite coffee drink is, in the comments below. On Saturday, October 6th, we'll randomly select four winners from the comments. Winners will be announced on our blog, on October 8th. So, be sure to check back on the 8th. You could be one of the lucky winners and we'll need your email address to send you your discount code.

We're also offering a great discount to our online store. Be sure to use the coupon code when checking out to save 20% on your purchase!

We're sharing three coffee inspired cards with you today. We hope you enjoy them!

For our first project I used Thanks a Latte from Lawn Fawn along with the Plaid Background stamp from Concord & 9th to create a Fall inspired coffee card. The images are colored with Copic Markers and embellished with Nuvo Glitter drops in White Blizzard, white embossing powder and a white gel pen. (Supply links can be found at the end of this post)

The next two cards were created using the same stamps and similar techniques. The backgrounds were stamped with images from the Coffee Break stamp set from MFT Stamps. The featured mugs are stamped with Copic friendly ink using the new, Thanks a Latte set from Lawn Fawn, and colored with Copics. I embellished the mugs with a white gel pen.

I masked off the edges of the card below before stamping the background images. After stamping, I used an ink blending tool to add some Antique Linen Distress Ink over the stamped images. Once complete, the masking paper was removed. The sentiment was added to the bottom and the mugs popped up with foam tape.

Thank you so much for stopping by. Don't forget to leave a comment, and check back on October 8th for winner announcements.

There are so many amazing blogs participating, sharing creative projects and giving away great prizes! Please use the links below to join the hop and visit each of them.